Category: Thinking

Random thoughts

Peter V Brett Book Signing

Marc

 

I have never been to a book signing before, so I didn’t know what exactly to expect from last Tuesday’s event in London. It was so great to meet your favourite author (Peter V Brett is tied with Stephen King as far as my favourite authors go) – of course it was brief, there were many people with books waiting to be signed – but it was great to have even just a brief chat – kind of amazing to think to yourself – “You know that awesome fantasy world that you’ve spent who knows how many hours of your life reading about, pondering, imagining, and discussing – well this is the guy who penned it all, right here!” – part of me wanted to jump up and down with excitement like a lunatic, the other part of me (the part that thankfully, usually wins these internal mind-battles) thought I should just act polite and ask a few questions about the books.

So well worth it, if you ever get the chance to meet your favourite author (even just for a couple of minutes) DO IT!

 

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Queue, the Stephen King section (AKA horror section, where they put King’s non horror books too)

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More queuing, lots of people talking about the books

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The books

Happy Anniversary

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It turns out that this domain imarc.co.uk was 10 years old in April this year. How time flies!

 

Back in 2002 the web was such a different place to what it is today. The first dotcom bubble had just burst and there was still a lot more amateur content online. It was quite common back then to still find personal home pages with photos of the family and kids, or maybe someone's site dedicated to their favourite band. These days the web is much more corporate, and everything we share is through sites like Facebook or Twitter.

 

Why is this? Has web design become an elitist art form? Yes textured backgrounds and blinking text might have looked horrible, but back then it was all about the love of the content subject, looks very much came second. No ones doubts that modern web design techniques have improved the look and accessibility of the web, but has it scared off the average Joe with a copy of FrontPage?

 

Maybe the world has just “moved on” as our favourite Gunslinger once said. People have better things to be doing than maintaining their own site. Blogging platforms like WordPress and Blogger have the advantages of Facebook with ease of use, but allow a greater degree of personalisation and independence. Perhaps these folks are writing apps instead?

 

Or maybe I'm just getting old. Who knows, I'm just rambling.

 

Happy Anniversary.

 

Death of a Polaroid

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I was lucky enough to be bought “Death of a Polaroid” for Christmas. This magnificent photo album documents many of Nicky Wire’s Polaroid snaps throughout the history of the band. With many people (especially technology bloggers) wishing away printed books, it made me realise how electronic books will never be able to replace some things, despite what they might hope for.